


It's For Science, Really

by donotforgetme24601



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, in which josie is a preternatural investigator, she has her work cut out for her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:58:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donotforgetme24601/pseuds/donotforgetme24601
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old Woman Josie goes through too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's For Science, Really

_The void stretches languidly--purring and smelling faintly of juniper--from the far off mountains to our small desert community. It has all the time in the world. You do not._

_Welcome to Night Vale._

Old woman Josie is actually _not that old_. She considers herself to be quite spry, really, and just because she's been in this town since it was founded and hasn't aged since then does not, by any means, mean that she has earned the superlative "old woman" tacked onto her name at every turn. Hmph. The tottering about and asking for people to repeat what they say several times is just a show. Of course.

With her age (or lack thereof) comes a certain knowledge of certain things: how to wash ectoplasm out of a silk blouse, where to buy rat spleens in bulk, and that when angels whisper, everyone should listen.

Something has changed.

Josie pulls herself out of her armchair with rusted over bones and crumbling skin and decides to find out what.

_This week's smells are as follows:_  
 _Monday: unsweetened soymilk and gunpowder_  
 _Tuesday: wintergreen gum chewed desperately to cover the scent of rotting meat_  
 _Wednesday: the tuna casserole your mother used to make before the accident_  
 _Thursday: fresh-cut dandelions and hospitals_  
 _Friday: mustard gas_  
 _Saturday: all scent capacities will be shut down by order of the Sheriff's Secret Police on Saturday, so it doesn't really matter_  
 _Sunday: nostalgia_  
 _These smells are sponsored by Target: lowest prices guaranteed because we've eliminated all the competition! Don't ask us how!_

Josie mostly operates on hunches, as all real facts are null in Night Vale.

She does not know much about Carlos, just that he came to the town with a pocketful of pills and the buzz of a mission swinging about his hips and that now he has Cecil's voice traced like scars down his back and his pockets are empty. Night Vale is a town people come to when they don't plan to ever go home, when they have a fishhook under their breastbone and the brush of dark trees that might not be trees at all against their ribs. It is a chalk and sand cemetery of the still-alive and the smell of over-cooked pizza sauce does not cover that of desperation and cheap tequila. Carlos did not come here to live. But he is. The angels have taken note.

She totters on splintering shipwreck legs to the window of Carlos' lab and looks in (she reasons that there are some privileges that come with age and that one of them is that she doesn't have to respect other people's privacy).

Through the window--which is a little smeared with some substance that seems like blood mixed with Crisco that the Glow Cloud had emitted along with carcasses--she sees a flash of teeth and the slow burn of ink against skin. Carlos has Cecil against the wall and Cecil's eyes are creased shut like sand dunes and his hands are fists in Carlos' lab coat and his tattoos are moving and alive against his sweat-slick skin and it is the most beautiful thing Josie has seen for a long time.

When Cecil's lips curl around Carlos' name, Josie sees why the angels have been whispering.

When Carlos drops to his knees and Cecil mouths out "Carlos, perfect and beautiful..." with a tattered fistful of impeccable hair, Josie doesn't see why the angels haven't been shouting from the rooftops.

When Cecil kisses his own taste from Carlos' mouth, the Glow Cloud exits Big Rico's after a PTA meeting, littering bodies as usual, and Josie decides to go home.

_The Sheriff's Secret Police have asked me to relay the following list of words to you, dear listeners:_  
 _Anger_  
 _Satin_  
 _Embossed_  
 _Loam_  
 _Heartbeat_  
 _Silkworm_  
 _Carnage_  
 _Escape_  
 _Bile_  
 _Dissolve_  
 _The Secret Police have not reported on what the list means, how it will be applied, and whether or not it has anything to do with the incident at last week's Little League baseball game. More on this story as it develops. If indeed it does._

The angels are gossips and Cecil Baldwin is getting it on with the sexiest man in town.

Josie figures it makes sense that the most unusual thing in Night Vale is the only thing that's right.

_Stay tuned next for an hour of high buzzing sounds interspersed with the noise of things you don't remember hearing before but you still fear!_

_Goodnight, Night Vale._

_Goodnight._

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short little thing I wrote in a fic exchange for a friend.
> 
> I don't own WTNV or anything, I'm not making money off of this, I can't afford a lawyer so pls don't sue me, etc.


End file.
